The Smith government’s plans to implement new age-appropriate book standards and policies in Alberta schools starting in 2025-26 school year raises concerns about who will ultimately decide which books are acceptable and which are not, says Penhold parent Michaela Ludwig.
“It seems like significant government over-reach,” Ludwig told the Albertan. “The idea that the government is going to ensure that there are age-appropriate books in the school libraries sounds altruistic, sounds like a great idea, but who determines what age-appropriate is? Who determines what children should and shouldn’t be reading? That should be left up to the educators.
“Who is it that gets to decide what is age-appropriate? They throw around terms like sexually explicit, but who decides what that is?
“I certainly trust my son’s educators to know what is good for students and what is appropriate for students, much more so than a politician up in Edmonton. The teachers look at books and they read them before they go into the library. And as a parent I should be deciding what he reads and what he doesn’t read.”
She said she is also concerned that the government may target books with depictions of the LGBTQ community.
Demetrios Nicolaides, Minister of Education and Childcare, announced the government’s plans last week, which also include a public survey to gauge what respondents believe are acceptable books for school library collections.
School boards will be required to implement the new standards along with publicly available policies by the start of the next school year. The standards will apply to public, separate, francophone, charter and independent schools.
In announcing the government plans, Nicolaides highlighted four books found in Alberta K-12 school libraries that he says contain inappropriate materials. The books, all by American writers, each contain explicit sexual content.
“We are going to do something about his serious issue by consulting Albertans and creating standards to ensure students do not have access to age-inappropriate materials in school libraries,” Nicolaides said.
In a release, the 51,000-member Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) president Jason Schilling said the association is “concerned that the selection process that the government has initiated has the potential to prioritize special interest groups arriving with their own predetermined agendas and to further target diverse communities.
“It seems like there is no coincidence that the government’s announcement on library materials specifically singled out 2SLGBTQIA+ materials.”
The association is calling on the government to “engage in meaningful and broad consultation with librarians, teachers, students and families, including those from the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.”
The 11,700-student Chinook’s Edge School Division (CESD) welcomes plans to develop age-appropriate standards for books in schools, Jason Drent, associate superintendent of learning services, told the Albertan.
“We fully support the province’s initiative to develop consistent standards for school libraries,” he said. “When they are released we will immediately review them and of course, revise any of our existing school policies and practices.
“At the end of the day, we are committed to providing a safe and enriching learning environment that comes from our libraries.”
The division welcomes the province’s call for feedback from school divisions, parents and others on the matter, he said.
CESD already has “extensive policies and procedures related to this to ensure that our collections are age-appropriate and they are aligned with educational goals and curriculum,” he said.
